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Texas sued a New York physician for prescribing a woman abortion pills, according to a lawsuit filed by state Attorney General Ken Paxton.
In the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Collin County, Paxton said that Margaret Daley Carpenter, a New York doctor, provided mifepristone and misoprostol, a pair of abortion-inducing drugs, to a 20-year-old pregnant woman there, which led to a medical abortion.
“Carpenter’s conduct violates the Texas Health and Safety Code’s prohibition on prescribing abortion-inducing drugs via telemedicine,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit asked the court for an injunction barring Daley from providing abortion pills to pregnant patients in Texas and requested civil penalties in the amount of $100,000 for each violation of the state’s laws.
“In Texas, we treasure the health and lives of mothers and babies, and this is why out-of-state doctors may not illegally and dangerously prescribe abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents,” Paxton said in a Friday statement.
Carpenter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday evening.
The lawsuit states that in July, a pregnant woman “asked the biological father of her unborn child to be taken to the hospital because of hemorrhage or severe bleeding,” and he learned after she was seen by medical professionals at a hospital in Collin County that she had been nine weeks pregnant.
He “suspected that the biological mother had in fact done something to contribute to the miscarriage or abortion of the unborn child” and later discovered the medications from Carpenter, according to the lawsuit.
Paxton’s filing said that Carpenter is not licensed to practice medicine in Texas and argued that by conducting telehealth visits in Texas, she was violating a state administrative code requiring that physicians who treat and prescribe patients in the state hold full Texas medical licenses.
“Unless Carpenter is restrained by this Court, with relief that is enforceable by a contempt order, Carpenter will continue to defiantly violate Texas Law,” the lawsuit states. “Carpenter’s continued violation of our Texas statutes as stated herein is probable and imminent.”
Carpenter is the co-medical director and founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, an advocacy group working to advance telemedicine abortion nationwide, the group’s website says.
Carpenter, who specializes in reproductive health and palliative care, has been providing medical and surgical abortions since 1999, according to a biography on the website.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was committed to ensuring that her state remained a “safe harbor for all who seek abortion care, and protecting the reproductive freedom of all New Yorkers.”
“Make no mistake: I will do everything in my power to enforce the laws of New York State,” Hochul said in a statement Friday.
In June, the Supreme Court rejected an effort to rescind the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, finding that the doctors who questioned FDA policies that granted wider access to the pill did not have standing to sue. Idaho, Missouri and Kansas renewed efforts to restrict the drug in October.
Zoë Richards is a politics reporter for NBC News.
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